When your head goes through the windshield: the 10 best moments of the TBS/Brand New feud

As time went on, the members of Taking Back Sunday appeared to have a more light-hearted and humorous perspective on all of the drama that unfolded. Videos like the one above from November 2012 show the band members talking about the feud in a joking manner. “Even after all this time,” Lazzara said onstage, “I still have folks come up to me like, ‘Yo, so, you hate Jesse Lacey!’ And I’m like, ‘I don’t even know that motherfucker!’” Bassist Shaun Cooper went on to speedily explain, “John and Jesse liked a girl. John made out with the girl before Jesse did. Jesse got bummed about it, and all of these songs happened because of it.”

Around the summer of 2003 is when a new chapter of Taking Back Sunday drama exploded. Lazzara had begun dating Nolan’s sister, Michelle, to whom he was allegedly unfaithful. This apparently angered Nolan and he left Taking Back Sunday to start the band Straylight Run, taking Cooper—and his sister—with him. Around this time, Nolan and Lacey apparently reconciled with a mutually reignited distaste for TBS. (Straylight Run have since broken up; Nolan and Cooper have returned to TBS.) When Straylight Run released their debut album in 2004, one of the songs, “Your Name Here (Sunrise Highway),” was apparently about Lacey, as a sort of apology track, and even included directions to his house:

Go east on Sunrise Highway.Turn left at Carman's Avenue.Go right at the first stoplight.And I'll be outside waiting for you.Oh, I'll be waiting for you.

10. The aftermathThe fact that this feud still resonates in the way it does is pretty shocking given that it all happened more than a decade ago. Learning that Taking Back Sunday are open to the idea of touring with Brand New—and have even suggested it—shows that TBS have pretty much moved on from the drama. But the fact that Brand New “always say no” and that the bands maintain zero public contact with one another shows there’s likely still some beef to be squashed. In the end, the drama didn’t negatively affect either bands’ careers: Both signed to major labels, enjoyed great success, and we even got some great music from Straylight Run out of it all. Why can’t they squash their beef in the form of a tour? Escape The Fate and Falling In Reverse just did it, and it was massively successful. It would almost be a guaranteed success for BN and TBS. They’d just have to decide who gets to headline.

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